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I had a chance to sift through Pitchbook’s U.S. VC Valuations Report for the first quarter of 2024.  The data point that really jumped out at me was the increase in down rounds.  The number of flat and down rounds as a proportion of all VC deals has been rising consistently since the first quarter of 2022, reaching 27.4% of all VC deals in Q1 2024, the highest level in ten years. 

Startling, but predictable.  Companies raised capital during the venture frenzy of 2020 and 2021 at high valuations.  Many startups that had since failed to reduce their cash burn when the fundraising market turned sour in mid-2022 are now facing the prospect of having to raise capital at a discount to their last valuation.

This trend has implications for founders, investors and companies, as down rounds can trigger anti-dilution provisions, dilute existing shareholders and create challenges for companies seeking to raise additional funding.  And there’s reason to believe the worst is not yet behind us.  The incidence of down rounds during historic bear markets indicates there is still plenty of room for valuations of venture-backed companies to fall further.  The rate of down rounds in the aftermath of the 2008 financial crisis rose to nearly 36% of venture deals, which was actually dwarfed by the 58% of deals during the dot-com bust.Continue Reading Navigating the Downside: The Rise of Down Rounds in 2024 VC Deals

The collapse of Silicon Valley Bank will have enormous repercussions for startups and VCs in ways seen and unseen.  As for the unseen, SVB had deep relationships among the various players in the venture ecosystem.  Founders and investors established banking relationships with SVB in part because of the opportunities SVB provided to network within the space.  It will be difficult for other lenders who don’t have these deep relationships to replace SVB in this capacity and fill this valuable role.Continue Reading Bumpy Ride Ahead for Startups After Silicon Valley Bank Crash

Two startups with competing, equally compelling technologies at the same stage of development are pitching venture capital investors for Series A funding.  One startup is led by a serial entrepreneur founder, the other by a novice.  Assume each will get funded.  In all likelihood, the deal will happen quicker and the amount funded and pre-money…

2021 was a spectacular year for the American venture capital ecosystem, with VC investments, fundraising and exits all setting new highs.  That according to the latest PitchBook-NVCA Venture Monitor, the self-described definitive review of the U.S. venture capital ecosystem.  Nevertheless, it is difficult to predict how 2022 will turn out for the VC industry,…

The just completed IPO of Snap Inc. has received enormous buzz and plenty of press coverage, mostly about its eye-popping valuation and offering proceeds, the big winners among the founders and early investors and the millennials who bought shares. But not nearly as much attention has been given to Snap’s tri-class capital structure…

2016 turned out to be a terrible year for IPOs, both in terms of number of deals and aggregate proceeds.

According to Renaissance Capital’s U.S. IPO Market 2016 Annual Review, only 105 companies went public on U.S. exchanges in 2016, raising only $19 billion in aggregate proceeds. The deal count of 105 IPOs was…

In Part I of this two part series on model structures for seed rounds, I explained how the dramatic decline in the cost of launching an internet-based startup over the last 15 years primarily due to the disruptive effects of open source software and cloud computing has led to a surge in seed stage investing…

Seed stage investment deals, i.e., those in a range of approximately $100,000 on the low end and around $1.3 million on the high end, are structured either as straight equity or as convertible loans. If straight equity, the company typically issues to the investor shares of preferred stock usually designated as Series Seed which includes…

“The Founder of a $50 Million Startup Just Sold His Company — And He Didn’t Make a Dime”.  Such was the provocative headline of the Business Insider article last year reporting the sad tale of young entrepreneur Lane Becker and how he and his management team received none of the acquisition proceeds on…

It’s never easy to take an entire business day out of the office, but the annual Cornell Entrepreneurship Summit is well worth it.  The 2014 edition, dubbed “Beyond the Horizon”, was no exception.  One thing that struck me about this year’s summit was that, unlike previous years, none of the entrepreneur speakers were Cornell alums, …